SKETCHES FOR AN ECONOMIC THEORY OF SUICIDE.
“There is but one serious philosophical problem and it is that of suicide. Judging when life deserves to be lived or not means to answer the fundamental question of philosophy”. Albert Camus (1913-1960; Nobel Prize 1957)
The theme of suicide is still being avoided and talking about it is, at least, ill-fated. I highlight that when I talk about this delicate issue I sustain two points: first, the worrying statistics on suicide, whose growth have been significant in the last 50 years – I mention them with much detail and I suggest the reader to go through them fast, unless he is deeply interested -; second and most important, I state that economic theory can give answers to such a dramatic situation. I insist that I do not find any joy in discussing this terrible subject and I apologize if I cause some offence on the sensibility of some readers.
In the very first place, let’s consider the magnitudes. The World Health Organisation points out with worry that since 1960 the suicide rate has grown on 60% worldwide. The current average is 16 suicides per 100,000 people, or, stated in other terms, each 40 seconds someone commits suicide worldwide. This decision took away almost 1 million people in the year 2000 and, within them, 100,000 people were teenagers. Between males the rise in the suicide rate has been the most shocking: from 1950 until 2000, the average suicide rate jumps from almost 17 per 100,000 to 27 per 100,000. Women have kept their rate more stable, around 5 per 100,000 – still worrying, of course. It these numbers are not shocking initially, consider that the WHO estimates that there are 20 failed suicides attempts for each suicide that takes place1
I am a Spanish citizen. In this Spanish case, there is a clear outbreak in the suicide rate since 1980. In the statistics provided by the WHO, it can be found that the suicide rate in 1950 reached a maximum level of 5,4 per 100,000. This number falls to 4.4 per 100,000 in 1980. In 1985 starts the growing rate, reaching 6.5 per 100,000 and there is a maximum of 8.4 per 100,000 in the year 2000. In the year 2008 the suicide rate is 7.6 per 100,000 and it can be observed the gender pattern: men are more suicidal: 11.9 per 100,000 in comparison with 3.4 per 100,000 for women. This is almost a recurrent fact in each country and period studied by the WHO. It shall be highlighted the abundant data available for Spain in the WHO’s database.
The age pattern in Spain for 2008 shows a growing suicide rate as age rises. The most worrying magnitude is for people older than 75 years: suicide rates for elderly male reaches 32.6 per 100,000; within the correspondent group of old ladies, the level also rises, but stands lower: 6.6 per 100,000 (again the gender gap). In the age group between 65 and 74 years old, men have a 19.4 per 100,000 suicide rate and women shows a level of 5.8 per 100,000. Between teenagers, another group whose suicide rate has grown worldwide, the suicide rate between 15 and 24 years is 5.3 per 100.000 between male and 1.2 per 100,000 within girls. In men, the suicidal behaviour shows a worrying rate of two digits, starting at the age of 35 years and moving through the 15 per 100,000 level, until the outbreak exhibited by old people.
1 The WHO statistics are compiled within their suicide prevention program called SUPRE (Suicide Prevention). It can be found on the WHO webpage: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/ A worrying fact about this exhaustive study is the lack of statistics from African countries.
This study on Spain was made when the economic crisis that is currently taken place in the beautiful Iberian land was just beginning. It can be guessed that this indicator has worsened. Following Paul Krugman on an article translated by the Spanish newspaper El País on April 22nd, 2012: “The New York Times informed of a phenomenon that is growingly spreading in Europe: the suicides ‘because of the economic crisis’ of people that take their own lives desperate for the unemployment and the bankruptcy of enterprises (…). Think in the situation of Spain that is actually the epicentre of the crisis. There it cannot be longer referred as a recession; Spain is in a full depression, with an unemployment rate of 23.6% comparable to that of the USA in the worst moment of the Great Depression and a youth unemployment of more than 50%”.
Within the hispanic world, in those rare nations that are considered more stable and democratic – at least since the 1990s – there is a remarkable suicidal incidence. The WHO compiles numbers for Chile in 2007, pointing out that the average rate for the whole country, is 18.2 per 100,000 for gentlemen and 4.2 per 100,000 within ladies. In Uruguay the most recent data available is from 2004: it has a suicide rate of 26 per 100,000 for male and 6.3 per 100,000 for women. Opposite to these numbers, the suffering Venezuela under the rule of Mr. Chávez has an official rate of 5.3 per 100,000 for men and 1.2 per 100,000 for women in 2007. Argentina, another country with governmental problems has a suicide rate of 12.6 per 100,000 for male and 3 per 100,000 for female, a relevant value for a country with a long psychoanalytic tradition between its citizens. Countries associated to narcotraffic exhibit more moderated suicidal rates: Mexico, whose numbers are compiled for 2008, shows a rate of 7 per 100,000 for men and 1.5 per 100,000 for women; in Colombia, the rate is 7.9 per 100,000 in the male gender and 2.0 per 100,000 within the female. An exceptional case is that of Cuba, associated to the most flagrant dictatorship in the continent: the suicidal rate reaches 19 per 100,000 between men and 5.5 per 100,000 between women, according to the data for 2008. Hispanic nations with low suicide propensity are Peru (1.9 per 100,000 for men and 1 per 100,000 for women, calculated in 2007) and Dominican Republic (3.9 per 100,000 for men and 0.7 per 100,000 for women).
If we take a broader view to the global numbers, there are even more shocking indicators. In the Russian Federation, for example, the suicidal rate for men is 53.9 per 100,000 (!) and for women it is 9.5 per 100,000 (numbers for the year 2006). Japan has another high propension and it is remarkable the female indicator – for men it is a thunderous 36.2 per 100,000 but for women it reaches a surprising level of 13.2 per 100,000. In the European Nordic countries there is the Finnish case: 29 per 100,000 of suicides for men and 10 per 100,000 for women. Another interesting case is that of Switzerland, a nation that is considered peaceful, happy and stable: suicide rate there reaches 24.8 per 100,000 within men and 11.4 per 100,000 within ladies.
In China there is data collected for selected rural and urban areas and the magnitude is 13 per 100,000 in men and –something really curious considering the global pattern-, women show higher suicidal rate: 14.8 per 100,000. In the former Hong Kong, the usual gap between men and women does hold: 19 per 100,000 versus 10.7 per 100,000.
In USA the index is 17.7 per 100,000 in men and 4.5 per 100,000 in women, according to the 2005 figures – Compare that to 17.7 per 100,000 for men and 2.5 per 100,000 in 1950-. It can be observed in the WHO data that within the male group the worst numbers took place between 1975 and 1990, keeping over 19 per 100,000 and reaching a maximum 20.4 per 100,000 in the year 1990. Women exhibit a different pattern historically: their most suicidal period was in the decade 1965-1975, staying over 6 per 100,000, a historical record. If the focus turns to the current data available, it can be found that between teenagers boys are worryingly more suicidal than girls – 16.1 per
100,000 versus 3.5 per 100,000 in the age group of 15 to 24 years old. Men older than 75 years show a striking rate of almost 38 per 100,000 – women stay in 4.0 per 100,000 and their most suicidal age is between 45 and 54 years old, when the suicidal index reaches 8 per 100,000.
Germany shows a 17.9 per 100,000 suicidal rate for men and 6 per 100,000 for women. United Kingdom shows one of the lowest rates between developed countries: 10.9 per 100,000 for male and 3.0 per 100,000 for women.
I am afraid that I could have shocked the reader with this account and perhaps a table could have summarized the facts; however I opted to add some comments on the index and I guess these numbers speak clearly about the suicide drama worldwide. I have mainly made a transversal reading between the most recent data available for countries and genders. It is clear that men commit more suicides and it could be figure out some correlation between authoritarian regimes and suicide – Cuba, Chinese women and in a lesser degree Russia -; however, it seems clear that economic prosperity and democratic stability do not seem to dissuade suicide among citizens – consider Japan2, Finland, Switzerland and in lesser degree Uruguay -. It can be argued that the statistics on suicide lack homogeneity internationally. If they are literally considered, Haiti would have a zero suicide rate in 2003 – the most recent number available for that country-.
Even with these cautions about reliability on statistics, the WHO allows following through age group and throughout the recent history of almost any country –the sad exception are African ones. Between the elderly people the suicide propension in definitely higher. Why suicidal rates show changing patterns historically is more difficult to explain. An example is my birthplace, Venezuela.
The only objective of following the behaviour of the suicidal rate through its history is to understand if the economic cycle and political changes have some incidence on how people take the fatalistic decision of suicide. Venezuela had such prosperity that in 1968 the Venezuelan currency, the Bolivar, was acceptable as a reserve currency by the IMF. However, the suicidal rate in 1970 was the double that in 2007: 6.8 per 100,000 versus 3.2 per 100,000. The macroeconomic environment can, however, help to try some explanation in these big suicide numbers. In the bonanza days of 1975-1985 the suicidal rate never surpasses the 5 per 100,000 and in 1985 it stays at 4.3 per 100,000. In 1990, a year after a brutal outburst in inflation and the end of many government subsidies, the suicidal rate jumps to 5.0 per 100,000. In the year 2000, just after Mr. Chavez got into office, the suicidal rate reaches its maximum in the last 20 years: 5.2 per 100,000. Later on, it falls to a historical minimum, under the 4 per 100,000 level.
I must insist there is data available by the WHO and of public domain that gives ground for a more serious study. It is clear that correlation does not mean causality. And it is also clear that when talking about suicide it is not the great numbers that are relevant: it is the individual suicide decision that triggers the most demanding attention.
So, finally, I arrive to the truly interesting matter: Economic Theory can illuminate about the suicidal choice. And herein Economics is understood as the study of human decision, confronting our unlimited needs and wishes against a reality with scarce resources –money, time, space, health – and uncertainty. In that direction, the Nobel laureate for economics, Professor Gary Becker has given me his authorization on July
2 Even in the prosper days of the 80s, suicide rate in Japan as a whole is 19.4 per 100,000 in 1985. Nevertheless, the impact of the deflation and economic contraction in Japan clearly suggest growing suicides magnitudes in Japan. In 1995 the suicide Japanese rate was 17.2 per 100,000; it blows to 24.1 per 100,000 in 2000 and it keeps almost steady on that level until the year 2009 – 24.4 per 100,000 -. Nevertheless, as a country, Japan is in the top 3 of GDP magnitudes for all the considered period.
6th, 2011 to comment his still unpublished study on suicide co-written with Magistrate Richard Posner3.
Suicide can be seen as a rational decision. When someone has a perspective about a future that will take place under unhappiness – it is considered in the present that the future life joy will be negative -, he or she may opt for suicide; however the decision may be deferred after a foreseeable happy –and transitory- event in that gloomy future. A seriously ill old man can postpone the suicidal decision after his granddaughter is born. So, first observation: it is not only people with mental illness who suicide. Suicide depends on how people value the future and that mental capability to make comparisons between present and expected future is key in Economics. It explains why we save, invest, study, have kids… And why we suicide. As a matter of fact, it throws light on why the elderly people are more suicidal: their future is shorter and it has scarcer value. Of course, we find old people who are more optimistic, healthy or religious and avoid that sad calculation.
In economic jargon – the reader may jump to the next paragraph without losing continuity in her reading-, very related to the theory of finance, if the present value of expected future life utility is negative, it can induce someone to opt for suicide. In this decision it has decisive influence how much happiness she expects in the future and how she values that future happiness in the present moment – this is the discount rate: if it tends to be too high, people values more the immediate and they have difficulties to postpone consumption of happiness-. Taking the argument further, even with a negative present value of life as a whole, if there is a single period when happiness (measured by utility) is positive, suicide will be postponed afterwards. Keeping with the financial jargon, there is an option – namely a right nor an obligation to suicide, which can be exerted or not – and whose value depends on elements such as, for example, the volatility of happiness (in option theory this sensitivity to volatility is named with the Greek letter vega). The more that happiness fluctuates throughout life, the more propensity to exercise the suicidal option – it gets “in the money” -.
People who feel bad and suicide tend to be scarcely conservative; they are disposed to taking risks. Then it comes a perturbing conclusion in the Becker-Posner theory. These potential suicide people may opt for giving themselves to self-destructive and risky behaviour as a substitute for immediate suicide. They can throw themselves into heavy drinking, smoking, illegal drugs, criminal gangs, compulsive gambling, reckless car driving, military service… This may explain why in Latin America countries there is less propension to suicide but there are higher criminal and violence rates. An example is the affiliation to these criminal gangs in Centre America known as “maras”.
Women and teenagers tend to suicide less. That may be explained by less access to guns, for example. However, they tend to attempt failure suicides the most, perhaps because they try to get compassion and sympathy and there is lack of cultural coercion to such demands by their gender and age. In that sense, there are suicide attempts that deliberately are far from being lethal because they only try to get some attention by other people. Among women it is more common to try suicide by taking overdoses of pills, for example, and the probability of success is higher when a gun is tried. Between teenagers it is clear that at their age the process of valuation of the future is less constructed4. Between adolescents the primary suicide is the ‘impulsive’ one, considering this as a myopic behaviour, where someone is unable to properly build a
3 BECKER, Gary S. and Richard Posner. Suicide. An Economic Approach. August 2004.
4 That statement of “we want the world and we want it know” or that of “die young to have a beautiful corpse” are both suitable to the teenager mind. However, I require most evidence about this asseveration. It is mine, not Becker-Posner’s.
good mental proxy about the future. It is worrying and the WHO agrees, that suicide among the youngest has grown in the last 50 years and Becker-Posner consider this is a sign of more dysfunctional families. I think this fact deserves more rigorous treatment. Since the decade of the 60s, the teenagers do not try to be a young copy of adult people and the concept of ‘generation gap’ was born during that decade. The adolescent, at least in affluent societies, has less labour and communitarian duties than 50 years ago and she is recognized as an individual who deserves, properly, a distinctive philosophy to deal with.
The effect of suicide on other is also a theme in the Becker-Posner reflection. In Economics, the name “externalities” is given to the involuntary effects of our activities on others. The individual who takes its own life does not usually want to make the others suffer – I guess that if that someone wants to really damage someone, she will opt for killing, not suiciding-. As a matter of fact, it is the presence and sensibility towards other what may deter suicide. Single people reportedly suicide with more probability and so do the lonely septuagenarians.
As a difference with conventional Economics, where behaviour is forward-looking, the suicidal person has a peculiarity: he also looks at the past in a backwards-looking comparison to his present condition. When people have a sudden drop in their level of happiness (for example, they get fired or lose their savings) or a immediate decline on their social status (immigrants, for example), they will consider the suicidal option more seriously. However, something must be stressed: the act takes places when the lost has recently taken place. Once time goes by, people get accustomed to their worse situation. An extreme example is the imprisoned people: the suicidal rate is greater in the first three months of incarceration – 89% of suicides in American penitentiaries are perpetrated by these recently jailed people and the rate drops after five months of incarceration-. I guess this may explain why Venezuelans committed suicide with more propension when Chavez began his mandated that 8 years after he has been in office. This fatal logic also applies to long time love engagements that are suddenly broken or recent deaths of loved ones. The first months after such disgraces are the most risky to self-infliction of damage. It may be stated that our ability to discount the future gets deteriorated, because we find that future happiness is negligible compared to its historic levels. The “sunken cost” of past happiness weights the most after a sudden reversal of fortune.
Another issue considered by Becker-Posner are those who immolate. They are not irrational. As a matter of fact, the study suggests that they measure their happiness and according to how unhappy they feel they do choose the type of suicidal mission they will engage to. Those who are deeply unhappy will accept missions with low probability of success or less damage to the enemy. Those in better situation will only accept missions with high probability of success and great injury to the enemy. In an extreme case, I can mention a biography I read about Pablo Escobar, the narcotraffic king, whose murder recruited people ill with AIDS to commit crimes whose perpetrator had high odds to be captured or killed. For these criminals, the others indeed counted on: they asked their reward to be paid to their families in advance5.
5 It is a book in Spanish La Parábola de Pablo (The Parable of Pablo) by Alonso Salazar (Planeta, 2001).
This book also includes a remark that leads to think about the substitution between suicide and risky potential self-destruction:
“Cocaine seems to verify the old historical truth that societies have never triumphed on vice. Ever since man has been an animal that requires drugs to mitigate his consciousness about death (…) Cocaine, with the values it has attached, is the typical drug of the liberal capitalism”.
As in any study on Economics, benefits and costs are compared for the suicidal act. If there are technologies that make it easier to suicide, they may encourage individuals to take such a drastic decision. I consider the Becker-Posner does not consider the reverse of the coin: new technologies that make it costlier to suicide, for example the Social Networks in Internet and the free-call telephone lines for people with suicide thoughts. This easiness to communicate with people may lower the suicide initiative, internalizing what were diffuse externalities before – social costs of suicide which were not perceived directly in the mental calculations about suicide-. An example about Facebook is this news published in the Argentinean information Service Urgente 24: “The tool incorporated by the website of Mr. Mark Zuckerberg allows to inform on suicidal comments, whose authors would immediately receive e-mails to invite them to call to specialized help centres or click on a link where they can initiate a chat, a session with a professional who will help them.”6
There is another intriguing theme and it is that of religions and how they see the afterlife. When a religion shows a perspective of some kind of life after death, it may encourage suicide if that future has promising features. That is the case of terrorist who engage to the jihad. In the Christian world the message is that hell or the renounce to eternal life come as a consequence to suicide. It is unforgettable the end of the epistolary novel Werther by Goethe, whose suicidal main character does not have any priest officiating at his burial.
This example of the novel shows something considered by Becker-Posner. It is so heavy the weight on our emotions that cause someone’s suicide (again the externality), that we would agree with such behaviour to be dissuaded or even its attempt to be condemned. In the past, law was severe with those who tried suicide fruitlessly – when the nephew of Beethoven attempted suicide in the Vienna of 1820, the young man had to join the army to avoid being imprisoned, causing immense pain to his uncle-. Today the perspective in developed countries is usually less severe and the view is that people who attempt suicide and fail deserve help, not damnation. Even, as Becker-Posner points out in the paper – the topic does not gather much attention than two paragraphs in this work - some societies admit euthanasia or the right to take one’s life when severely ill.
These are only some ‘flashes’ thrown by the Becker-Posner analysis. I guess they have not published their work because they are extremely rigorous with themselves – Professor Becker told me he did not consider it a ‘finished product’-. Well, we common mortals would have been happy with just 10% of their insight. I would dare, however, to suggest some additions.
In first term, and this is just a hypothesis, I guess people who are considering suicide may opt for no harmful activities instead. They may be no risk-adverse (they may even love risk) and engage in novelties that are not necessarily self-destructive – perhaps many religious ministers and missionaries in remote countries would have chosen suicide had no they engaged in these philanthropic projects. Other options include migration, changing religion or breaking familiar preconceptions and just going to a therapist. People may engage to some novel and risky idea or project that may even generate positive outcomes for their happiness and society as a whole. This kind of substitution can be found in many biographies. Slower self-destruction and immediate Suicide are not the only available choices for unhappy people.
In second place, I find it has to be considered the differences between countries on the suicide patterns and statistics. I enumerated them superficially at the beginning and I think that though some recurrences can be explained with the Becker-Posner
6 URGENTE 24. “Si se quiere suicidar, evite Facebook”. 20/12/2011
framework7 (I even postulated the observation of more violence than suicide in dysfunctional Latin America societies can be understood following Becker-Posner), there must be added a cultural parameter in the happiness (or namely utility) function. The WHO, in its SUPRE study, detects that impulsiveness is more present as a cause in Asia, while in the USA (axis of the Becker-Posner study) depression and alcoholism are more frequent causes – that highlights that alcoholism, for example, may just postpone the suicide decision and not discourage it-. Another cultural issue are philosophical trends that may induce suicide from time to time – that would mean that externalities of suicide on society may diminish and its moral costs reduce -: some modern examples are the Romantic movement (Werther, the Sturm und Drag and irrationalism philosophies in the 19th Century)8 or Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century. There can be some dosage of crowd behaviour on suicide. However I guess that is ready to be captured on the Becker-Posner framework.
A third route of thinking is considering the technological innovations related to suicide. I do not consider, with the exception of legal framework, that suicidal costs have lowered since 1950 and I guess we may find the opposite, that there are easier technologies to assist unhappy and even desperate people –telecommunications, therapy, legal drugs and information-. Perhaps the rise on suicide numbers comes from more availability of data and less shame to admit a suicide took place. This is an element to be considered in the cost of suicide. Cheaper social networking shall diminish the cost of suicide nowadays.
In a fourth perspective I would consider something implicit in the Becker-Posner material: our utility function (our way to measure happiness) changes with time. It is not static how we ‘discount future happiness’; our preferences about the future may change according to age and health. This dynamic pattern of the Utility Function may explain that throughout time we do not keep the same urgency to have immediate pleasure, though genetics may explain some recurrent facts in how people, throughout their lives, measure happiness and the future. The influence of education and culture may also explain the observations for women, adolescents and old people. Our mind procedures to compare happiness in the past, the present and the future are dynamic, changing and maybe unpredictable.
Finally, the authors quote some philosophers key on the reflection on suicide, at least in modern times: Hume and Schopenhauer (we could go back to the Stoics, but it does not seem to be relevant on the Becker-Posner framework). However I miss Camus, who I quoted at the beginning. On his reflection on Suicide, scheduled in The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus considers the suicide as an answer to the absurdity of life and this kind of reading may trigger suicidal tendencies in someone. Even Camus himself can be understood within the Becker-Posner framework: the French thinker, so sensitive to the absurd, died in a car crash. This asseveration of Becker and Posner may apply to him:
“Some psychoanalysts claim that all accidental deaths have elements of suicide. This is true in the trivial sense that voluntary actions could be avoided, so that people who rationally choose a life-threatening activity are choosing to die with a certain probability. A more
7 It is quite clear that the reverse of fortunes associated with a sudden economic recession or depression can explain suicide upheavals, and that is perfectly captured within the Becker-Posner analysis. That may explain the “large numbers”. It is also clear that the evidence supports the less suicidal success within the female gender that Becker-Posner associate with a cultural demand of men to be more reserved and less communicative about their feelings.
8 There is a painting by Spaniard Leonardo Alenza painted in 1839 and named “Satyr of Romantic Suicide”.
interesting statement is that an accidental death is the equivalent of a suicide if the person would commit suicide had the accident not killed him.”9
Madrid, April 2012
9 Camus was not driving the car that rid him to death. However he accepted to be the passenger of a fast sportive car, the French “Facel Vega”. That may be seen as temerarious.
The theme of suicide is still being avoided and talking about it is, at least, ill-fated. I highlight that when I talk about this delicate issue I sustain two points: first, the worrying statistics on suicide, whose growth have been significant in the last 50 years – I mention them with much detail and I suggest the reader to go through them fast, unless he is deeply interested -; second and most important, I state that economic theory can give answers to such a dramatic situation. I insist that I do not find any joy in discussing this terrible subject and I apologize if I cause some offence on the sensibility of some readers.
In the very first place, let’s consider the magnitudes. The World Health Organisation points out with worry that since 1960 the suicide rate has grown on 60% worldwide. The current average is 16 suicides per 100,000 people, or, stated in other terms, each 40 seconds someone commits suicide worldwide. This decision took away almost 1 million people in the year 2000 and, within them, 100,000 people were teenagers. Between males the rise in the suicide rate has been the most shocking: from 1950 until 2000, the average suicide rate jumps from almost 17 per 100,000 to 27 per 100,000. Women have kept their rate more stable, around 5 per 100,000 – still worrying, of course. It these numbers are not shocking initially, consider that the WHO estimates that there are 20 failed suicides attempts for each suicide that takes place1
I am a Spanish citizen. In this Spanish case, there is a clear outbreak in the suicide rate since 1980. In the statistics provided by the WHO, it can be found that the suicide rate in 1950 reached a maximum level of 5,4 per 100,000. This number falls to 4.4 per 100,000 in 1980. In 1985 starts the growing rate, reaching 6.5 per 100,000 and there is a maximum of 8.4 per 100,000 in the year 2000. In the year 2008 the suicide rate is 7.6 per 100,000 and it can be observed the gender pattern: men are more suicidal: 11.9 per 100,000 in comparison with 3.4 per 100,000 for women. This is almost a recurrent fact in each country and period studied by the WHO. It shall be highlighted the abundant data available for Spain in the WHO’s database.
The age pattern in Spain for 2008 shows a growing suicide rate as age rises. The most worrying magnitude is for people older than 75 years: suicide rates for elderly male reaches 32.6 per 100,000; within the correspondent group of old ladies, the level also rises, but stands lower: 6.6 per 100,000 (again the gender gap). In the age group between 65 and 74 years old, men have a 19.4 per 100,000 suicide rate and women shows a level of 5.8 per 100,000. Between teenagers, another group whose suicide rate has grown worldwide, the suicide rate between 15 and 24 years is 5.3 per 100.000 between male and 1.2 per 100,000 within girls. In men, the suicidal behaviour shows a worrying rate of two digits, starting at the age of 35 years and moving through the 15 per 100,000 level, until the outbreak exhibited by old people.
1 The WHO statistics are compiled within their suicide prevention program called SUPRE (Suicide Prevention). It can be found on the WHO webpage: http://www.who.int/mental_health/prevention/suicide/suicideprevent/en/ A worrying fact about this exhaustive study is the lack of statistics from African countries.
This study on Spain was made when the economic crisis that is currently taken place in the beautiful Iberian land was just beginning. It can be guessed that this indicator has worsened. Following Paul Krugman on an article translated by the Spanish newspaper El País on April 22nd, 2012: “The New York Times informed of a phenomenon that is growingly spreading in Europe: the suicides ‘because of the economic crisis’ of people that take their own lives desperate for the unemployment and the bankruptcy of enterprises (…). Think in the situation of Spain that is actually the epicentre of the crisis. There it cannot be longer referred as a recession; Spain is in a full depression, with an unemployment rate of 23.6% comparable to that of the USA in the worst moment of the Great Depression and a youth unemployment of more than 50%”.
Within the hispanic world, in those rare nations that are considered more stable and democratic – at least since the 1990s – there is a remarkable suicidal incidence. The WHO compiles numbers for Chile in 2007, pointing out that the average rate for the whole country, is 18.2 per 100,000 for gentlemen and 4.2 per 100,000 within ladies. In Uruguay the most recent data available is from 2004: it has a suicide rate of 26 per 100,000 for male and 6.3 per 100,000 for women. Opposite to these numbers, the suffering Venezuela under the rule of Mr. Chávez has an official rate of 5.3 per 100,000 for men and 1.2 per 100,000 for women in 2007. Argentina, another country with governmental problems has a suicide rate of 12.6 per 100,000 for male and 3 per 100,000 for female, a relevant value for a country with a long psychoanalytic tradition between its citizens. Countries associated to narcotraffic exhibit more moderated suicidal rates: Mexico, whose numbers are compiled for 2008, shows a rate of 7 per 100,000 for men and 1.5 per 100,000 for women; in Colombia, the rate is 7.9 per 100,000 in the male gender and 2.0 per 100,000 within the female. An exceptional case is that of Cuba, associated to the most flagrant dictatorship in the continent: the suicidal rate reaches 19 per 100,000 between men and 5.5 per 100,000 between women, according to the data for 2008. Hispanic nations with low suicide propensity are Peru (1.9 per 100,000 for men and 1 per 100,000 for women, calculated in 2007) and Dominican Republic (3.9 per 100,000 for men and 0.7 per 100,000 for women).
If we take a broader view to the global numbers, there are even more shocking indicators. In the Russian Federation, for example, the suicidal rate for men is 53.9 per 100,000 (!) and for women it is 9.5 per 100,000 (numbers for the year 2006). Japan has another high propension and it is remarkable the female indicator – for men it is a thunderous 36.2 per 100,000 but for women it reaches a surprising level of 13.2 per 100,000. In the European Nordic countries there is the Finnish case: 29 per 100,000 of suicides for men and 10 per 100,000 for women. Another interesting case is that of Switzerland, a nation that is considered peaceful, happy and stable: suicide rate there reaches 24.8 per 100,000 within men and 11.4 per 100,000 within ladies.
In China there is data collected for selected rural and urban areas and the magnitude is 13 per 100,000 in men and –something really curious considering the global pattern-, women show higher suicidal rate: 14.8 per 100,000. In the former Hong Kong, the usual gap between men and women does hold: 19 per 100,000 versus 10.7 per 100,000.
In USA the index is 17.7 per 100,000 in men and 4.5 per 100,000 in women, according to the 2005 figures – Compare that to 17.7 per 100,000 for men and 2.5 per 100,000 in 1950-. It can be observed in the WHO data that within the male group the worst numbers took place between 1975 and 1990, keeping over 19 per 100,000 and reaching a maximum 20.4 per 100,000 in the year 1990. Women exhibit a different pattern historically: their most suicidal period was in the decade 1965-1975, staying over 6 per 100,000, a historical record. If the focus turns to the current data available, it can be found that between teenagers boys are worryingly more suicidal than girls – 16.1 per
100,000 versus 3.5 per 100,000 in the age group of 15 to 24 years old. Men older than 75 years show a striking rate of almost 38 per 100,000 – women stay in 4.0 per 100,000 and their most suicidal age is between 45 and 54 years old, when the suicidal index reaches 8 per 100,000.
Germany shows a 17.9 per 100,000 suicidal rate for men and 6 per 100,000 for women. United Kingdom shows one of the lowest rates between developed countries: 10.9 per 100,000 for male and 3.0 per 100,000 for women.
I am afraid that I could have shocked the reader with this account and perhaps a table could have summarized the facts; however I opted to add some comments on the index and I guess these numbers speak clearly about the suicide drama worldwide. I have mainly made a transversal reading between the most recent data available for countries and genders. It is clear that men commit more suicides and it could be figure out some correlation between authoritarian regimes and suicide – Cuba, Chinese women and in a lesser degree Russia -; however, it seems clear that economic prosperity and democratic stability do not seem to dissuade suicide among citizens – consider Japan2, Finland, Switzerland and in lesser degree Uruguay -. It can be argued that the statistics on suicide lack homogeneity internationally. If they are literally considered, Haiti would have a zero suicide rate in 2003 – the most recent number available for that country-.
Even with these cautions about reliability on statistics, the WHO allows following through age group and throughout the recent history of almost any country –the sad exception are African ones. Between the elderly people the suicide propension in definitely higher. Why suicidal rates show changing patterns historically is more difficult to explain. An example is my birthplace, Venezuela.
The only objective of following the behaviour of the suicidal rate through its history is to understand if the economic cycle and political changes have some incidence on how people take the fatalistic decision of suicide. Venezuela had such prosperity that in 1968 the Venezuelan currency, the Bolivar, was acceptable as a reserve currency by the IMF. However, the suicidal rate in 1970 was the double that in 2007: 6.8 per 100,000 versus 3.2 per 100,000. The macroeconomic environment can, however, help to try some explanation in these big suicide numbers. In the bonanza days of 1975-1985 the suicidal rate never surpasses the 5 per 100,000 and in 1985 it stays at 4.3 per 100,000. In 1990, a year after a brutal outburst in inflation and the end of many government subsidies, the suicidal rate jumps to 5.0 per 100,000. In the year 2000, just after Mr. Chavez got into office, the suicidal rate reaches its maximum in the last 20 years: 5.2 per 100,000. Later on, it falls to a historical minimum, under the 4 per 100,000 level.
I must insist there is data available by the WHO and of public domain that gives ground for a more serious study. It is clear that correlation does not mean causality. And it is also clear that when talking about suicide it is not the great numbers that are relevant: it is the individual suicide decision that triggers the most demanding attention.
So, finally, I arrive to the truly interesting matter: Economic Theory can illuminate about the suicidal choice. And herein Economics is understood as the study of human decision, confronting our unlimited needs and wishes against a reality with scarce resources –money, time, space, health – and uncertainty. In that direction, the Nobel laureate for economics, Professor Gary Becker has given me his authorization on July
2 Even in the prosper days of the 80s, suicide rate in Japan as a whole is 19.4 per 100,000 in 1985. Nevertheless, the impact of the deflation and economic contraction in Japan clearly suggest growing suicides magnitudes in Japan. In 1995 the suicide Japanese rate was 17.2 per 100,000; it blows to 24.1 per 100,000 in 2000 and it keeps almost steady on that level until the year 2009 – 24.4 per 100,000 -. Nevertheless, as a country, Japan is in the top 3 of GDP magnitudes for all the considered period.
6th, 2011 to comment his still unpublished study on suicide co-written with Magistrate Richard Posner3.
Suicide can be seen as a rational decision. When someone has a perspective about a future that will take place under unhappiness – it is considered in the present that the future life joy will be negative -, he or she may opt for suicide; however the decision may be deferred after a foreseeable happy –and transitory- event in that gloomy future. A seriously ill old man can postpone the suicidal decision after his granddaughter is born. So, first observation: it is not only people with mental illness who suicide. Suicide depends on how people value the future and that mental capability to make comparisons between present and expected future is key in Economics. It explains why we save, invest, study, have kids… And why we suicide. As a matter of fact, it throws light on why the elderly people are more suicidal: their future is shorter and it has scarcer value. Of course, we find old people who are more optimistic, healthy or religious and avoid that sad calculation.
In economic jargon – the reader may jump to the next paragraph without losing continuity in her reading-, very related to the theory of finance, if the present value of expected future life utility is negative, it can induce someone to opt for suicide. In this decision it has decisive influence how much happiness she expects in the future and how she values that future happiness in the present moment – this is the discount rate: if it tends to be too high, people values more the immediate and they have difficulties to postpone consumption of happiness-. Taking the argument further, even with a negative present value of life as a whole, if there is a single period when happiness (measured by utility) is positive, suicide will be postponed afterwards. Keeping with the financial jargon, there is an option – namely a right nor an obligation to suicide, which can be exerted or not – and whose value depends on elements such as, for example, the volatility of happiness (in option theory this sensitivity to volatility is named with the Greek letter vega). The more that happiness fluctuates throughout life, the more propensity to exercise the suicidal option – it gets “in the money” -.
People who feel bad and suicide tend to be scarcely conservative; they are disposed to taking risks. Then it comes a perturbing conclusion in the Becker-Posner theory. These potential suicide people may opt for giving themselves to self-destructive and risky behaviour as a substitute for immediate suicide. They can throw themselves into heavy drinking, smoking, illegal drugs, criminal gangs, compulsive gambling, reckless car driving, military service… This may explain why in Latin America countries there is less propension to suicide but there are higher criminal and violence rates. An example is the affiliation to these criminal gangs in Centre America known as “maras”.
Women and teenagers tend to suicide less. That may be explained by less access to guns, for example. However, they tend to attempt failure suicides the most, perhaps because they try to get compassion and sympathy and there is lack of cultural coercion to such demands by their gender and age. In that sense, there are suicide attempts that deliberately are far from being lethal because they only try to get some attention by other people. Among women it is more common to try suicide by taking overdoses of pills, for example, and the probability of success is higher when a gun is tried. Between teenagers it is clear that at their age the process of valuation of the future is less constructed4. Between adolescents the primary suicide is the ‘impulsive’ one, considering this as a myopic behaviour, where someone is unable to properly build a
3 BECKER, Gary S. and Richard Posner. Suicide. An Economic Approach. August 2004.
4 That statement of “we want the world and we want it know” or that of “die young to have a beautiful corpse” are both suitable to the teenager mind. However, I require most evidence about this asseveration. It is mine, not Becker-Posner’s.
good mental proxy about the future. It is worrying and the WHO agrees, that suicide among the youngest has grown in the last 50 years and Becker-Posner consider this is a sign of more dysfunctional families. I think this fact deserves more rigorous treatment. Since the decade of the 60s, the teenagers do not try to be a young copy of adult people and the concept of ‘generation gap’ was born during that decade. The adolescent, at least in affluent societies, has less labour and communitarian duties than 50 years ago and she is recognized as an individual who deserves, properly, a distinctive philosophy to deal with.
The effect of suicide on other is also a theme in the Becker-Posner reflection. In Economics, the name “externalities” is given to the involuntary effects of our activities on others. The individual who takes its own life does not usually want to make the others suffer – I guess that if that someone wants to really damage someone, she will opt for killing, not suiciding-. As a matter of fact, it is the presence and sensibility towards other what may deter suicide. Single people reportedly suicide with more probability and so do the lonely septuagenarians.
As a difference with conventional Economics, where behaviour is forward-looking, the suicidal person has a peculiarity: he also looks at the past in a backwards-looking comparison to his present condition. When people have a sudden drop in their level of happiness (for example, they get fired or lose their savings) or a immediate decline on their social status (immigrants, for example), they will consider the suicidal option more seriously. However, something must be stressed: the act takes places when the lost has recently taken place. Once time goes by, people get accustomed to their worse situation. An extreme example is the imprisoned people: the suicidal rate is greater in the first three months of incarceration – 89% of suicides in American penitentiaries are perpetrated by these recently jailed people and the rate drops after five months of incarceration-. I guess this may explain why Venezuelans committed suicide with more propension when Chavez began his mandated that 8 years after he has been in office. This fatal logic also applies to long time love engagements that are suddenly broken or recent deaths of loved ones. The first months after such disgraces are the most risky to self-infliction of damage. It may be stated that our ability to discount the future gets deteriorated, because we find that future happiness is negligible compared to its historic levels. The “sunken cost” of past happiness weights the most after a sudden reversal of fortune.
Another issue considered by Becker-Posner are those who immolate. They are not irrational. As a matter of fact, the study suggests that they measure their happiness and according to how unhappy they feel they do choose the type of suicidal mission they will engage to. Those who are deeply unhappy will accept missions with low probability of success or less damage to the enemy. Those in better situation will only accept missions with high probability of success and great injury to the enemy. In an extreme case, I can mention a biography I read about Pablo Escobar, the narcotraffic king, whose murder recruited people ill with AIDS to commit crimes whose perpetrator had high odds to be captured or killed. For these criminals, the others indeed counted on: they asked their reward to be paid to their families in advance5.
5 It is a book in Spanish La Parábola de Pablo (The Parable of Pablo) by Alonso Salazar (Planeta, 2001).
This book also includes a remark that leads to think about the substitution between suicide and risky potential self-destruction:
“Cocaine seems to verify the old historical truth that societies have never triumphed on vice. Ever since man has been an animal that requires drugs to mitigate his consciousness about death (…) Cocaine, with the values it has attached, is the typical drug of the liberal capitalism”.
As in any study on Economics, benefits and costs are compared for the suicidal act. If there are technologies that make it easier to suicide, they may encourage individuals to take such a drastic decision. I consider the Becker-Posner does not consider the reverse of the coin: new technologies that make it costlier to suicide, for example the Social Networks in Internet and the free-call telephone lines for people with suicide thoughts. This easiness to communicate with people may lower the suicide initiative, internalizing what were diffuse externalities before – social costs of suicide which were not perceived directly in the mental calculations about suicide-. An example about Facebook is this news published in the Argentinean information Service Urgente 24: “The tool incorporated by the website of Mr. Mark Zuckerberg allows to inform on suicidal comments, whose authors would immediately receive e-mails to invite them to call to specialized help centres or click on a link where they can initiate a chat, a session with a professional who will help them.”6
There is another intriguing theme and it is that of religions and how they see the afterlife. When a religion shows a perspective of some kind of life after death, it may encourage suicide if that future has promising features. That is the case of terrorist who engage to the jihad. In the Christian world the message is that hell or the renounce to eternal life come as a consequence to suicide. It is unforgettable the end of the epistolary novel Werther by Goethe, whose suicidal main character does not have any priest officiating at his burial.
This example of the novel shows something considered by Becker-Posner. It is so heavy the weight on our emotions that cause someone’s suicide (again the externality), that we would agree with such behaviour to be dissuaded or even its attempt to be condemned. In the past, law was severe with those who tried suicide fruitlessly – when the nephew of Beethoven attempted suicide in the Vienna of 1820, the young man had to join the army to avoid being imprisoned, causing immense pain to his uncle-. Today the perspective in developed countries is usually less severe and the view is that people who attempt suicide and fail deserve help, not damnation. Even, as Becker-Posner points out in the paper – the topic does not gather much attention than two paragraphs in this work - some societies admit euthanasia or the right to take one’s life when severely ill.
These are only some ‘flashes’ thrown by the Becker-Posner analysis. I guess they have not published their work because they are extremely rigorous with themselves – Professor Becker told me he did not consider it a ‘finished product’-. Well, we common mortals would have been happy with just 10% of their insight. I would dare, however, to suggest some additions.
In first term, and this is just a hypothesis, I guess people who are considering suicide may opt for no harmful activities instead. They may be no risk-adverse (they may even love risk) and engage in novelties that are not necessarily self-destructive – perhaps many religious ministers and missionaries in remote countries would have chosen suicide had no they engaged in these philanthropic projects. Other options include migration, changing religion or breaking familiar preconceptions and just going to a therapist. People may engage to some novel and risky idea or project that may even generate positive outcomes for their happiness and society as a whole. This kind of substitution can be found in many biographies. Slower self-destruction and immediate Suicide are not the only available choices for unhappy people.
In second place, I find it has to be considered the differences between countries on the suicide patterns and statistics. I enumerated them superficially at the beginning and I think that though some recurrences can be explained with the Becker-Posner
6 URGENTE 24. “Si se quiere suicidar, evite Facebook”. 20/12/2011
framework7 (I even postulated the observation of more violence than suicide in dysfunctional Latin America societies can be understood following Becker-Posner), there must be added a cultural parameter in the happiness (or namely utility) function. The WHO, in its SUPRE study, detects that impulsiveness is more present as a cause in Asia, while in the USA (axis of the Becker-Posner study) depression and alcoholism are more frequent causes – that highlights that alcoholism, for example, may just postpone the suicide decision and not discourage it-. Another cultural issue are philosophical trends that may induce suicide from time to time – that would mean that externalities of suicide on society may diminish and its moral costs reduce -: some modern examples are the Romantic movement (Werther, the Sturm und Drag and irrationalism philosophies in the 19th Century)8 or Vienna at the beginning of the 20th century. There can be some dosage of crowd behaviour on suicide. However I guess that is ready to be captured on the Becker-Posner framework.
A third route of thinking is considering the technological innovations related to suicide. I do not consider, with the exception of legal framework, that suicidal costs have lowered since 1950 and I guess we may find the opposite, that there are easier technologies to assist unhappy and even desperate people –telecommunications, therapy, legal drugs and information-. Perhaps the rise on suicide numbers comes from more availability of data and less shame to admit a suicide took place. This is an element to be considered in the cost of suicide. Cheaper social networking shall diminish the cost of suicide nowadays.
In a fourth perspective I would consider something implicit in the Becker-Posner material: our utility function (our way to measure happiness) changes with time. It is not static how we ‘discount future happiness’; our preferences about the future may change according to age and health. This dynamic pattern of the Utility Function may explain that throughout time we do not keep the same urgency to have immediate pleasure, though genetics may explain some recurrent facts in how people, throughout their lives, measure happiness and the future. The influence of education and culture may also explain the observations for women, adolescents and old people. Our mind procedures to compare happiness in the past, the present and the future are dynamic, changing and maybe unpredictable.
Finally, the authors quote some philosophers key on the reflection on suicide, at least in modern times: Hume and Schopenhauer (we could go back to the Stoics, but it does not seem to be relevant on the Becker-Posner framework). However I miss Camus, who I quoted at the beginning. On his reflection on Suicide, scheduled in The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus considers the suicide as an answer to the absurdity of life and this kind of reading may trigger suicidal tendencies in someone. Even Camus himself can be understood within the Becker-Posner framework: the French thinker, so sensitive to the absurd, died in a car crash. This asseveration of Becker and Posner may apply to him:
“Some psychoanalysts claim that all accidental deaths have elements of suicide. This is true in the trivial sense that voluntary actions could be avoided, so that people who rationally choose a life-threatening activity are choosing to die with a certain probability. A more
7 It is quite clear that the reverse of fortunes associated with a sudden economic recession or depression can explain suicide upheavals, and that is perfectly captured within the Becker-Posner analysis. That may explain the “large numbers”. It is also clear that the evidence supports the less suicidal success within the female gender that Becker-Posner associate with a cultural demand of men to be more reserved and less communicative about their feelings.
8 There is a painting by Spaniard Leonardo Alenza painted in 1839 and named “Satyr of Romantic Suicide”.
interesting statement is that an accidental death is the equivalent of a suicide if the person would commit suicide had the accident not killed him.”9
Madrid, April 2012
9 Camus was not driving the car that rid him to death. However he accepted to be the passenger of a fast sportive car, the French “Facel Vega”. That may be seen as temerarious.
Libertad ¿positiva o negativa? Publicado en diario impreso El Universal - Venezuela.
Privatizar cárceles: ¿una solución?. Publicado en diario El Universal - Venezuela 11/07/2011
UN VENEZOLANO QUE SE HACE EL SUECO.
ECONOMIA SUMERGIDA EN ESPAÑA. Publicado en edición impresa de diario "El Mundo" de Venezuela.
MIDIENDO LA DEMOCRACIA MUNDIAL.
